1 These spreadsheets contain data on Australia's international trade in services on a balance of payments basis. Annual services data by State, and by Country are released twice yearly. Calendar year data are usually released with the March issue of International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia (cat. no. 5368.0) and financial year data are usually released with the September issue.

4 The Concepts, Sources and Methods publication is available to download free from the ABS website. Select Methods, Classifications, Concepts & Standards, then choose ABS concepts, classifications and statistical standards and then the catalogue numbers as above.

SIGN CONVENTION

5 In keeping with balance of payments conventions, where statistics are on a balance of payments basis, credit entries (exports) are shown without sign and debit items (imports) are shown as negative entries.

SERVICES BY STATE

6 Services credits are classified by the state of provision, while services debits are classified by the state of consumption. The state allocations for transportation, travel, freight insurance and telecommunication services are based on a number of indicators including merchandise trade statistics by state, overseas passenger arrivals and departures by state of clearance and data provided by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. The allocation for other services (about 25% of all trade in services) is primarily based on the location of the business reporting the information, which serves as a proxy for the state of provision/consumption of that service. The data should be used with care but are considered suitable for analysis over time.

SERVICES BY PARTNER COUNTRY

Partner country estimates are produced to provide a summary of Australia's trade in services with major trading partners.

9 Current publications and other products released by the ABS are available from the Statistics View. The ABS also issues a daily Release Advice on the web site which details products to be released in the week ahead.

ROUNDING

10 Where figures have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals.